In article ,
 "MrPepper11"  wrote:

> Wall Street Journal
> January 27, 2005
>
> The Latest Dating Headache: Women With High Salaries Wary of Gold
> Diggers
> By SUE SHELLENBARGER
>
> It wasn't until her engagement party that Genine Drozd realized her
> fiance was a little too interested in her paycheck.
>
> "I'm going to quit my job next year and just hang out," Ms. Drozd says
> she overheard her fiance, then 24, an accountant, boasting to friends.
> Ms. Drozd, who at 21 already had a successful career as a
> public-relations manager, says the notion nauseated her. "At that exact
> moment I felt like I was going to throw up. I looked at him and
> thought, 'Who are you?'" She soon broke off the engagement.
>
> Now that women are snaring a majority of both college degrees and
> professional jobs, they're getting a taste of something else that used
> to be a male-only province: gold-digging dates. Many women are
> surprised to find their earning power has become a magnet for the
> opposite sex.

What?  Money is somehow desirable to men as well?  No!!!! :-)

These articles are hilarious because they come across
as so incredibly self-centered and oblivious to reality.
"Why doesn't the world revolve around my happiness
like the media says it should?"

> And based on my e-mails some high-earning women worry
> that their slacker dates will always be just that: slackers who want to
> be supported. It's a growing concern for people in their 20s and 30s,
> not just because young women are earning more, but because young men
> feel less compelled to fit the mold of the traditional solo
> breadwinner.

Woo hoo!

Us old farts are going to have value after all!

In my generation (late 30's, early 40's), the menfolk were
shocked to discover that the post-feminist women were no
longer satisfied with a man who merely earned a decent income
and held open their doors.  The women's attitude was
that such men were as common as dirt.

About the same time, movies making fun of "slackers" came out:
Beavis and Butthead, Clerks, even Office Space.  Many men decided
that if the rat race was unwinnable they wouldn't
play anymore (or at least would play by different rules.)

> Research by Megan Sweeney, an assistant professor of sociology at the
> University of California, Los Angeles, shows a trend toward
> higher-earning women marrying at higher rates. Among white women, a
> $10,000-a-year increase in income predicted a 6.8% increase in the
> likelihood that a woman will marry in a given year. Among black women
> posting a $10,000-a-year income gain, the increase in the likelihood of
> marriage was 8.2%. This is a change from the past, when women's
> earnings affected their chances of wedlock far less, Dr. Sweeney found.

Statistics are so much fun when they're cited totally out
of context.  In what income bracket does this number apply?
Does it apply equally to women earning a million bucks as it
does to a clerk only earning 20G's?

> Match.com, a dating Web site with 15 million users, is seeing a rise in
> men who specify that they want to date only women above a certain
> income level. In 2004, more than half, or 51%, of men specified a
> minimum income for dates, up from 37% in 2001, a spokeswoman says.

Part of this is due to the success of the family courts in
educating men of their marital liabilities.

Also, men became aware of how "cosmetics" works for men.
For example: A man who has a college degree but earns
a poor salary at a well titled job can often still
land successful women because she isn't ashamed to talk
about his work (at the time.)

By the same token, many men are aware of women with worthless
university degrees who earn little and will only turn into
a liability for him later.  So men may, in the future, look
more at the bottom line than women...

> More men are going a step further, insisting on women who make more
> than they do. More than one-third, or 35%, of male users of True.com, a
> dating Web site with 2.7 million users, are seeking females with higher
> incomes, says Herb Vest, True.com's CEO. Only 20% of male True.com
> users want a woman who makes less.

It's called leveraging their assets: If these men know that
they must earn a certain income to impress these women
AND there are plenty of such women available, they're naturally
going to go for the best bargain they can.

A lot of this is a function of the very place these
researchers are gathering their statistics: dating web sites.

When a person places or reads an ad, it's similar to them
shopping for a used car.  It's very impersonal despite
people trying to dress up their ads with a romantic paragraph.
(Come on, what good does it do to write a 10 page solliquy about
how she wants her "soulmate" when her minimum requirements
is that she wants a university educated man with a decent
salary whose at least 6 feet tall?)  Her pickin's are going
to be slim and the men who somewhat qualify for her know it.

This is why women tried to resist the ads at first.  When
they were created, the M:F ratio was upwards of 10 to 1
or even more.  Women preferred more private venues where the
"cost" of a man evaluating her was higher so it made
it more his while not to shop around.  The moment a woman
posts a personal, she's 'asking him out' so to speak.

It's only going to get more competitive.

> Some high-earning women fear attracting a live-in couch potato.
> Michelle Demus, 31, an account manager for a fashion wholesaler, won't
> discuss her income. But she is doing well enough to rent an apartment
> in a fashionable Manhattan high-rise. On dates, she says, "I've had the
> Sugar Momma conversation" with guys who fantasize aloud about her
> supporting them. "Some guys say ... 'These ladies have it right'" in
> staying home, says Ms. Demus.
>
> Her reaction? "It's not a positive one," she says. "I think, 'Ah.
> You're already looking to stop working?'" She breaks off such
> encounters quickly.

Ah yes, 31. She sounds real young.

She doesn't understand male humor: If such men are joking about
such a thing, then that indicates they don't think it seriously
applies to them.  These men are probably the LEAST likely
to want to take advantage of her.

> Ms. Demus doesn't rule out guys who make less

HAHAHAHA!

That would be a good idea for a woman whose 31 and has a high income...

As others have no doubt pointed out: Men have been in the same
boat for the past 10,000 years or so.  They understand that
if they want the kind of mate that fulfills their sexual
desires and fantasies, they have to cut them a bit of slack.

> but
> they must enjoy their work. "For me the question is, are we
> intellectually compatible? Are you passionate about what you do?"

I smell a shovel and a pile of BS.

If the guy is passionate about working at the video store,
she probably is going to dump him anyway.

And this is a problem she is facing: She sees relationships
in terms of rejecting men and being in the drivers' seat
at the beginning of a relationship.  She thinks she can
make unilateral demands.  That is no longer the case.
Welcome to post feminism.

> The pattern isn't limited to young singles. In a recent e-mail, a
> 41-year-old divorced mother frets that her fiance, who lives with her,
> feels no obligation to help pay the bills and seems offended when she
> asks, saying his income is needed for his real-estate investment
> business. "He's not supporting his fair share of the household budget
> and I worry about future entanglements," she writes.

I know a woman whose precisely like this.  She was stuck
with a loser (really) but she kept tolerating him because
he was hot looking.

Of course, if genders were reversed, nobody would think
twice about it.  A hot blonde who sits around all day
watching the tele?  So what?

> For some women, the answer is to keep their incomes to themselves.
> Nicole Harris, 32, a partner in a Cincinnati real-estate firm, once
> dated a mortgage broker who knew her substantial income and assets and
> must have boasted about it to friends. "When we broke up, all of his
> friends were shocked" that he let her slip away, because of her money,
> Ms. Harris says. Now, she is more private about money. Her current
> fiance, owner of two small businesses, doesn't know what she makes. She
> doesn't know his income either. They each know the other works hard,
> and that's enough for now, she says.

HAHAHA!  Good luck to 'em.

As men know, women have lots of ways to find out a man's income
through probing them about their life.  "What do you do?"
"What kind of car do you drive?"  "Where did you go to school?"

Actally, the above woman is probably in more jeopardy because
if this guy is having trouble with his small businesses, he
might turn out to be MORE of a financial liability to her
in a marriage than if she had just stuck with some video
store clerk who sat at home watching videos.

> Some women are wary of being trapped in the breadwinner role
> themselves. Some want the companionship of men who are as ambitious as
> they are. Others want the freedom to stay home with their children some
> day.

As other men pointed out, this is incredibly hypocritical and
self-centered.  They go to great pains to deny men
freedoms they themselves think should be a birthright.

At the same time, even as they selfishly try to make
a grab for "equality", they fail to see how it doesn't
work out.

I have a friend whose in-law is a lawyer and she complains
that all the lawyers she wants to date in her lawfirm are
too busy for a personal life (as is she.)  Two successful
people are often going to not wind up hooking up
(at least not in the same stage of their lives.)

> Men have their own conflicts over the issue. Not all men who seek
> high-earning dates want to be supported. David Morin is looking for
> relief from the pressure of the solo-breadwinner role.

And women who have careers are all cookies and cream and
don't introduce their own pressures?

> His wife stayed
> home with their two kids during their seven-year marriage, which ended
> in divorce. Working long hours then as a financial manager, he says he
> was so stressed that he found it hard to relax with his wife. "My
> emotions were on hold for a long time," leading to blow-ups, says Mr.
> Morin, 29, a Hampton, Va., investor and personal trainer. He has since
> sought out high-earning women through a dating site, who are "more
> independent and more motivated than most of the guys I know."

Indeed.   But will he want to marry such a woman and deal
with all of her career complaints, etc.?

He's probably just having a good time playing the field:
Throw a few free meals at 'em, flash his pedigree, and have
a good time in bed.

> Other men pursue high-earning women because they are drawn to the
> personal attributes of go-getters. Success "comes with stories and
> experiences about how she grew her own business, took a financial risk,
> got herself through school," says Patrick Shaughnessy, 39, Chicago, a
> product-support manager who is successful in his own right, but enjoys
> dating high achievers. "This is the kind of woman I want to be
> associated with. At the end of the day, isn't it all about a laugh and
> a story? A shared experience?"

This guy belongs on the cover of Ms magazine.  He's precisely
the kind of man such women fantasize about: Someone who
will respect with rapture over a woman's successes BUT
not expect any duties or personal commitment from her.

At the same time, look at his wording: DATING.  He enjoys
having a good time with them in bed.  He enjoys the
romance portion of the relationship which, for him, is cheap.

For most commoners (such as myself), dating is a chore.
Blowing $200 at spagos to get a woman enraptured and blabbing
on about her accomplishments and into bed isn't worth
the emotional worry about the credit card bill at the end
of the month.

Then again, there are plenty of idiotic normal men who ARE willing
to blow that kind of money on a regular basis just to
fool such women.  Buyer beware!

regards,
Mark Sobolewski


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